Thanks for this Mick - believe it or not, sometimes today I was googling your name and "M.....Series revival" to see if there was anything new on the web - so , good to get an update - although not a very optimistic one But I understand Christchurch might have other priorities at the moment...

The Hennen clan is apparently still all set to come, so I guess that the Wanganui celebrations at least are still a go-go so far ?

Pat is confirmed as a guest for the Wanganui Cemetery Circuit 60th anniversary celebrations, along with several others, while Michael Dunlop has been confirmed as a starter for the race day programme. Barbara Lett, Rod Coleman and Ray Witham are organising the anniversary celebration, so chances are it'll be well thought out.

Hi my name is Marcus i raced at the 1976-7 1977-8 Marlboro seriies also in .1996 at Pukekhoe,Taupo&Wanganui,I believe its me with Vaughn at the Wanganui Hotel (page16) Vaughn in Lovely blue nightie.
Cheers Felix73
Ps Im currently race administrator for Nsw Post classic Racing Assosiation would love to go to Wanganui Dec 2012

Hi
I forgot to Add Murray Sayle and I used to go out drinking every Wed night,later Geoff joined us but he was very shy until he became friendly with VC .Warren Willing and myself used to fly model planes together until we discovered bikes.
Cheers Felix

A while back someone asked if anymore knew what George Vukmanovich (Little George) was doing these days. He lives in Granada Spain and I got an email from him. Still seems to be the same great guy I remember, still following his passion. Nice:

Did 30 years of GP racing and now the last 12 years have lived in Spain, racing in the Spanish championship. Still love my work and just do that. I haven't been back to the states since 1999.

Hello all. Just wanted to check in and let you know I saw Pat Hennen this last Saturday and we were able to spend several hours together. SO great to see him again. I'm hoping we can get together again very soon.

Friends, I feel it's time to bring this thread back to the top, unfortunately we haven't heard any confirmation as to the proposed reunion meeting at Timaru on January 5th, so sadly it looks like it's not happening - but on the other hand, the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Cemetery Circuit in Wanganui are soon approaching, taking place on coming boxing day so december 26th . There is a parade for former riders planned on raceday, plus formal and informal nostalgia gatherings in the evenings. I know from a reliable source that Pat Hennen is on his way there ( or has just arrived ) , and that quite a few of the former Marlboro Series regulars will also be there . Is anybody from the forum planning to attend, and if so could they please share their thoughts, reports and pictures here ? Very much looking forward to that !

Two interesting pictures ( although not very sharp ) that I shamelessly borrowed today from the Wanganui circuit website. Both, as far as I can tell, from the inaugural Marlboro Series (73-74 )

Here we have Dale Wylie on his unfaired #48 TR500, Ginger Molloy with #2 ( he alternated from this TZ350 to his H2R depending upon the circuits ) and on the far right the "F" on the fairing of Pat Hennen's "Sayonara Special" TR500.

But who is this with "K" ? I think this machine was identified earlier as the 380 Suzuki-based racer built by the recently departed Dr Cashman , but ridden by ...... ?

And who is "J" ? In my opinion, it does not look like Jeff Sayle ( who carried "J" the following years ) . Carrying a letter, so not a Kiwi in principle....any ideas ?

Here, outside of the mystery "K" and "J" , I recognise Murray Sayle (H), Jim Landrebe (77), Ginger Molloy (2), Trevor Discombe (3), Keith Turner (1), and maybe John Boote (80) - although he carried #140 on his 700 when he famously got hold of it for the last two races of the series.

I think rider #K is Warren Willing, but not on the Cashman C3. Rather this is a triple built by Dick Lawton and housed in a Steve Roberts frame (from memory, so I stand to be corrected). I believe this bike is now in Australia. The C3 came later, was only ever ridden by Jim Landrebe and never raced out of the South Island. #69 Paul McLachlan?

Correct re Willing on the Roberts 380-"ish", spot the Adams and Sons t-shirt under the leathers.
If 69 is Paul McLachlan, he is on an S2 triple. J is Mike Steele, also there are 14 Don Cosford, 83 Bill Holmes, 28 Nigel Caigou, 42 Mike Adler, 70 Dave Ogden, 90 Brendan Quirk and 74 Dave Crook on the Acme Toffee Apple Co Honda 350. The striped helmet behind Steele belongs to Ralph Hannan, and I believe the green helmet behind him to be Norris Farrow. Pretty fair grid !
Looks like Chris Woodmass holding Steele's helmet in the pits pic, and could that be young Stu Avant chatting to Wylie ?
Are you going along for a look this year, Peter ?

Some years back he wrote about the significance of that day in very unflattering terms without having been there, or displaying much knowledge of the sport in NZ or the relevance or importance of the Marlboro Series. I have dumped on him on a couple of sites for what I consider ill-informed reporting of the circumstances. Seems in researching a Rayborn story he has come across one of my rants on the kiwibiker.co.nz site, in the Racing sub-forum on a thread entitled "Interesting how the yanks see nz."
While I agree that the medical situation that day was appalling, there's no question that as a result this has been addressed, and was done so almost immediately, not just there but elsewhere. The track safety at Pukekohe in those days was no worse than most US circuits , luckily both those sets of circumstances have continued to improve worldwide. The sadness of that day, in concert with the tragedy of the Pasolini/Saarinen crash at Monza earlier in the year, brought to an end the era of hoping for the best, and she'll be right, and was the beginning of risk aviodance and more responsible track safety guidelines.
I'm not under any illusion that nothing was wrong that day at Pukekohe, far from it, but at the time felt the need to speak out when I saw what I considered to be a dismissive, poorly-researched piece of reporting.

I was a great Cal Rayborn fan seeing him here in 1972 @ Brands Trans Trophy, but journalists can certainly put a slant on things! (quote) "Incredibly, Rayborn was the top-scoring American of the series and split the wins with the best the British could offer" (unquote) so in real world terms he won 50% of the races Pickrell winning the other 50%, as for having not seen the tracks before, the Brands Club circuit & Mallory Park were not exactly like having to learn Spa or the Nurburgring being just over a mile long.

As for the brief synopsis of why he was in NZ & Cals sad demise, pretty poor writing.

That's a much better effort, Philippe. Apart from a couple of minor hiccups, that's pretty much how it was. Probably that last paragraph from Ginger summed it up best.
Stein is an American who often races a Manx at the NZCMRR classic festival at Pukekohe each February, so he's had the advantage of actually speaking to some of those involved, not conjecturing from the other side of the globe.

This has just popped up today on trademe. I have met the owner some years ago, a policeman, a nice guy. I wonder whos TZ it was when it was new?http://www.trademe.c...n-585448908.htmNice to see a fairly original one.

I see on You Tube there is a copy of the 1974 documentary on Geoff Perry. It was only shown once on TV but has been restored. It was produced by Roger Donaldson (Worlds Fastest Indian). Not one of his better efforts. Needed more shots of racing and the bikes themselves. However it does give the flavour of Daytona.

Published on Nov 15, 2013

The 23rd of July 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of when New Zealand Motorcycling lost a champion. His name was Geoff Perry. Geoff was an apprentice aircraft engineer with Air New Zealand and ALWAYS flew with Air New Zealand.

However on this day the trip back to the states saw him booked with Pan American World Airlines (Pan Am).

As fate would have it on the 23rd July 1973 the Pan Am 707 flight 816 named "Clipper Winged Racer" plunged into the Pacific Ocean shortly after take off from Faa'a International Airport Tahiti. Geoff died aged just 23.

Geoff Osborne and I have just published a new book about classic bikes called "Classics - Great Motorcycles and People."

The reason I have posted it here is that one of the bikes, the Yamaha TZ 750, has a connection to the Marlborough series through its rider, Stu Avant.

www.apexbikes.com I hope some of you will be interested in a great book and this is also a perfect Christmas present (hint hint).

The price is $55NZ postage is $6.50 in NZ, $14.50 to post to Australia, and 27 pounds to buy 16 to post in the UK.

150 pages of motorcycling goodness.

It’s a high quality publication featuring 10 bikes. There are loads of studio-shot photos of each bike and the words go into detail about the bike, what marque it's from and its place in history. I undertook detailed research before I wrote it.

The bikes featured are:

· Graeme Crosby’s Suzuki XR69 – a rare works example.

· Yamaha TZ750 – is this the greatest Grand Prix motorcycle of all time?

· Ivan Miller’s Suzuki RN400 – a multiple championship winner and one of fewer than 30 works models built.

· From Ken McIntosh’s famous workshop, the mighty Manx Norton, Egli Vincent and Jawa 500 – all showing the engineering excellence that made this small NZ company world famous.

· Ginger Molloy’s first Bultaco TSS125 – featuring a detailed interview with Molloy about his experiences racing on the Continent in the 60’s.